Everything happens so fast anymore which is why businesses need to create images that inspire their customers to notice them.
I have been a Google Business Photographer since 2012. Because of that I have seen many changes in the SEO market. Today more than before, the most important idea is to get noticed. Images do not have to always be studio work but they must be high quality. Your images must represent your company and not be stock images. Everyone has seen the same smile at almost all dental offices I know because I owned a teeth-whitening business back in 2008, and the same stock image I bought then are still in offices today 9 years later. Your customer knows you’re not fixing that guy’s teeth anymore.
You can take a photo with your smart phone and think that it is ok, but will it get noticed? Will it be remembered? Will it inspire customers to check out your business? Usually not. This article is not to get you to call me, but I hope it gets you to call a professional photographer next time you think about the images you want to use to show case your business.
You can let your potential new customers walk into your business thru the front door and walk around via a virtual tour. If I’m going to my favorite dinner house, Luke’s on Front Street, I can tell someone I am meeting there to go to a link on Google Maps. They can see the entire restaurant before they arrive so they are excited about where we are meeting.
Today people learn through visual experience often more than reading words. How many families do you see in a restaurant and they are all on their smart phones at the table together. They are looking at images most of the time or playing a video or gaming. Hasn’t the world become an image based ideological place to exist? If they wanted words, there would be more books sold today than ever but there isn’t. 1 in 5 or 6 people actually read books! So how do they get information about photography and art? Typically, it starts with You Tube or searching on Google until they view something interesting. Then they watch the moving pictures instead of reading how to do something. Visual is more connective anymore.
Let’s go back to photography before I run out of words. Taking photos anymore is walking along with your smart phone seeing let’s say a sunset stopping snap the picture which most likely looks ok! You show them to your friends and few (Oohs and Ahs) and it gets discarded because it is not worth keeping.
Before you yell at me, I am aware there are really great apps for software to develop and make it pretty but that is not what I am critical about. Will that photo ever hang in a museum? Will it ever be spoken about by your peers? Most likely not and I would guess Ansel Adams, Steve McCurry or Jay Maisel all top world photographers would not consider it memorable either. Sometimes I have to do something for local events on my phone, but I don’t do what I consider art with my phone. One of my pictures at the Golden Corral has 240,00 views but it is not what my representation of photography is, it was just a photo I did for a soft opening and got a lot of views.
So, let me finish if you only have a smart phone go forward and you will have something. But if you can afford a photographer do that and you can expect something great for your money!
